World Wide Cycling
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Jean Bässler concentrating for the prologue. (Photo: Nicolas Zylberglait) In 1999 we sent the German Hohenfelder-Concorde Trade Team to South-America for the national tour in Uruguay. If the local race-organiser doesn't take good care of the Team and the management of the Team doesn't suply a budget, it can get real tough, for the riders and their helpers. This made the Vuelta Ciclista del Uruguay a very hard race. The competition was hard, but the circumstances made it very difficult for the foreign teams. Food in kitchen for the homeless (most of the time at 21.30 in the evening), sleeping in one room with a complete team (nine persons) and a mad bus driver at the side of your bed at 5 in the morning, because he needs to bring your luggage to the next ‘hotel’. Living on chicken and rice for eight days and pick up the Uruguayan riders in their luxury hotels every morning.
This,
together with stages of 180-200 km’s every day and cheating in the time trial,
wrecked the team. The last riders that quit, Holger Sievers and Jean
Bassler were sick and could not go on anymore. The last night in the race was
dramatic, with Bässler suffering 42 C, keeping the rest awake and finally two
butchers showing up in an ambulance. After the gigantic injection they gave,
Jean was dizzy for 48 hours!
Because
the riders found out soon enough that they couldn’t beat the Uruguayan sprinters (also
because the maps of the finishes and the last kilometre signs were wrong every
time), they tried early attacks every day, apart from Dahlberg getting second one
stage, the main result was that the team has been shown on national TV every
evening for hours.
Preparing for a stage ...... and recovering after a stage.
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Sometimes the complete team had to sleep in one
room.
A "nice dinner" in a kitchen for the homeless.
